es round when you want to be sure of
something. The sun never sets twice alike over Mont Pelee; but you can
always get the same brand of lager to-day that you had the week before."
He looked at her with a faint amusement. "And by your expression I take
it you don't know how fine some of those brands are. Life is not half
bad--even when it is only a means to the beer."

Under these garish lights, in the middle of this theater of people,
facing the bland, almost banal, stare of that monocle, it looked
exceedingly probable that, after all, in spite of her dreaming, this was
what life would prove to be. But she hated the thought, as she hated
that Kerr should be the one to show it to her; as she would have hated
her ring if, after all its splendor in the shop, it should have turned
out to be a piece of colored glass.

"No, no! I won't believe you," she stoutly denied him. "There _is_ more
in life than you can touch. You're not like yourself to say there is
not."

He laughed, but rather shortly.

"My dear child, forgive me; I'm sulky to-night. I feel, as I felt at
eighteen, that the world has treated me badly. I've lost my luck."

The way his voice dropped at the last sounded to her the weariest thing
she had ever heard. He settled back in his chair again, and looked
moodily out across the brilliant house.

"I'm sorry." Her tone was sweetly vague. What could be the matter with
him? Then, half timidly, she rallied him. "If you go on like this, I
shall have to show you my talisman."

"Oh, have you indeed a talisman?" he humored her. And it was as if he
said, "Oh, have you a doll?" He did not even turn his head to look at
her.

She was chilled. She felt the disappointment, that his quick smile had
lightened, return upon her. She hardly noticed the rise of the curtain
on the second little play, and the singing voices did not reach her with
any poignancy. She was vaguely aware of movements in the box--of
Harry's coming in, of Clara's little rustle making room for him, of the
shift of Ella's chair away from the business of listening, toward him,
and her husky whisper going on with some prolonged tale of dull
escapade; but to Flora they all made only a banal background for the
brooding silence of her companion. He had thrown his mood over her until
she was ready to doubt even the potency of her talisman to counteract
it.

She felt of the stone. She drew off her glove and tried to look at it in
the dim light, but couldn'